9-year-old US boy arrested for carrying gun to school

New York: A nine-year-old boy in the US has been arrested for carrying a loaded a gun to school to show it off to other students.

Debra Dryden, who was driving a Hillsborough County school bus in Florida filled with students to Ippolito Elementary School on Wednesday morning said she had been keeping an eye through the mirror on a 9-year-old boy and an older student sitting next to him.

"I heard the other student say something to the effect of, 'I won't be picking on you anymore'," Dryden was quoted as saying by Tampa Bay Times.

"Then, I was really interested. You keep your eyes open, but you also keep your ears open. You can tell when they're up to something. It's kind of like being a mom," she said.

Dryden monitored the boy through the mirror until they reached the school. As they pulled up to the bus ramp, she saw the 9-year-old take a gun from his backpack and put it into his pants pocket.

She called the school district's transportation dispatch line, which contacted the school and the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

Police arrived at the school and later arrested the 9-year-old boy, charging him with possession of a firearm on school property.

The boy, whom the paper did not name because of his age and because he was not charged with a violent crime, was taken to the Hillsborough County Juvenile Assessment Center.

The boy had a loaded two-shot, .22-caliber Derringer that he first told sheriff's investigators belonged to his mother and that he had brought it from home, Larry McKinnon, Sheriff's office spokesman, said.

He said he brought the gun to school to show it off to other students, McKinnon said.

The boy later told investigators he found the gun in a park. By the end of the interview with investigators, the boy had given four or five different accounts of how he got the gun, McKinnon said.

The boy's mother met deputies and her son at a Sheriff's office substation. She denied the gun belonged to her, he said.